Role-Playing Game Design and Publishing
SEP has published a few lines that may be of interest, and you can find a page devoted to each.
Centurion: Legionaries of Rome has characters serving under the eagles of Rome in her famous legions.
Nefertiti Overdrive is about high-octane, wire-fu action set in Ancient Egypt and includes a series of adventures that tell a longer story.
Sword’s Edge is a generic system for which multiple adventures in different genres are available.
The intent is for this to be set in the modern or near modern period. With the focus on a pirate radio station, it wouldn’t make much sense to have it set before the 1960s. Radio will probably continue to have a role in culture and communications for the next few decades, but already many are turning to online sources for the same purposes as my generation engaged with radio. In a cyberpunk setting, this might be a specialized streaming service. With corporations having so much power, misusing corporate IP and possibly siphoning off even the tiniest modicum of their profits, would likely not end well. The geographic setting of neither the city nor the origin of the radio pirates is specified. This is on purpose and hopefully will allow you to better implement the story for maximum impact with your players and maximum integration into your game. As will become evident, a diaspora is a key part of the story. Not providing specificity is not to imply that every geopolitical crisis that displaces populations is interchangeable, or that the populations themselves are interchangeable, just that many of the strategic factors are similar.
One of the key sources of ‘street truth’ for the PCs is a member of the staff of a pirate radio station—an unlicensed radio station using public airwaves. The Contact doesn’t need to be out-front talent—like a DJ or host—but they are a key part of the functioning of the station. While the station itself is not political, it is staffed by and caters to a displaced population who fled The State due to insecurity. Some of the most popular songs for the station have political messages—whether subtle or implicit. The State is now looking to stop the station’s broadcasts—both through legal means and less than legal pressure.
The Station: However the station works, there is going to be a physical location where at least some of the equipment is housed and which is regularly manned. The Contact spends much of their time here—are they a technician making sure all systems are go? It is something like a home to at least a few of the staff. It’s a place they connect to the homes and homeland they have lost, possibly forever, and so is very important to them.
The Diner: This is a restaurant or other hospitality business that caters to the same population as The Station. It is a community centre for most of the displaced population, and the favourite hangout for many of The Station staff.
The Contact: They are a survivor and they are a lynchpin for both The Station staff, and more widely for the displaced population. They have wide metaphorical shoulders, but they can’t carry everything. No one can. They are getting tired—bloody exhausted—both from being strong for the community and for the emotional labour they are performing. And now, they are threatened. It’s all getting to be too much. They are ready to give up.
The Agent: The main antagonist is actually familiar with The Contact. Maybe they were childhood friends, maybe romantic partners—they might even have been an ally who was turned by The State. They don’t necessarily want to hurt anyone, but they are determined to shut down The Station—and they are willing to use violence, even if they don’t want to.
The Visit: People are asking questions about The Station at The Diner. They are definitely from The State—though they do not identify themselves as agents of The State. It might be The Agent, but it’s probably just part of their team. This is the first sign of trouble.
The Inspection: The State has persuaded the government of the city, province, or nation which hosts The Station to undertake a perfunctory administrative action intended to make The Station staff uncomfortable. It might have something to do with residency or legal status. It might have something to do with other jobs, the physical location of The Station. Whatever it is, it’s clear The State is using all levers to try to end The Station.
The Confrontation: After other encounters, it’s going to come down to this. Depending on the PCs skills and capabilities, this might be a fight, a court case, a debate, or some other direct interaction which pits the PCs against The Agent and others from The State.
No one’s entirely good and no one’s entirely bad, and sometimes, bad people do good things. Usually, we’re all just normal people with failings who make mistakes. Sometimes we talk about redemption—but what are we redeeming? Most religions accept that people won’t be able to live up the tenets.
And it’s just fun sometimes to subvert expectations. The hero isn’t an anti-hero, just a person who made a mistake. This isn’t redemption, they’re not a bad person trying to atone, they’re just a person who can’t ignore suffering when they have the means to alleviate it.
(more…)Right now—in the 2020s—it’s K-Pop. Before that—at least in Asia—it was J-Pop. While there might be superficial similarities to manufactured pop stars and boy- and girl-bands in North America and Europe, the term Idol has particular significance when applied to the star system in Korea and Japan. These stars are not only trained in music and dance performance, but cultivate an image of accessibility and even connection—an intentional para-social relationship that is based on the idea that the Idol is just like you, they are your avatar in the world of superstardom, and that they rely on you to support and protect them. That probably isn’t true of every Idol and Idol group, nor is it necessarily intentional, but it kind of helps identify and categorize a particular approach and style.
And this is definitely not intended to denigrate the Idols. They are amazing performers—singers, dancers, and actors all in one. They work insanely hard and undergo incredible stress in pursuit of their art. Maybe they are doing it for the money or the adulation, but aren’t we all? Pick any singer-songwriter of note. They could have stayed in the coffeeshop or the club but they instead sought the limelight. We want to share our art with the world (man, can I relate to that!) and maybe bring some joy. I would expect that most Idols are no different. Money is how the world shows it cares.
(more…)This adventure is designed for a cyberpunk or near-future dystopia kind of setting, but could certainly be adapted to almost any genre with a bit of work. Instead of an arcology, maybe it’s a village the local lord has abandoned. Maybe it’s a neighbourhood in a city in an ungoverned space.
The basic premise is one that has been seen throughout history—when the authorities decide not to resource civil order in an area, someone ultimately arises to impose it. Those that arise as alternative providers of civil order are either criminal organization or they evolve into one. It then becomes really difficult of state authorities to then reassert power over the area, if they ever try. The areas have often become heavily criminalized with extreme sanctions for those cooperating with the authorities.
The adventure works best if the region is one the PCs know well through previous interaction. It might be the location of a safehouse, or perhaps an informant or other ally that has helped the PCs previously. A situation like this might end up feeling like a status quo the PCs do not consider shifting or that the PCs do not need to address. I mean injustice and oppression is everywhere, right?
(more…)In The Bad Sleep Well, individuals are merely pawns for the powerful to sacrifice when they become inconvenient. The ambitious who toss aside those who have supported them without remorse are particular villains. Like Hamlet gaining revenge for his father’s fate, The Bad Sleep Well centres on a plot to gain revenge. That’s the inspiration for this one-pager. It could work in a modern, near future, or cyberpunk setting—or even an earlier 20th Century framing. While records were harder to search and harder to duplicate and exfiltrate before digitization, that could add some level of complication to the story, which is always a good thing.
(more…)As you maybe have noticed (or maybe not), I was recently thinking about Aliens. It remains one of my favourite movies, and another recent viewing has done nothing to shake my admiration and adoration. So one might expect that a one-pager based on Aliens would be a bug hunt—tragic or otherwise—similar to the situation on LV-426. The thing, is, I’ve already kind of done that in the Ideas and Hooks section in Starship Commandos. But I do like the idea of space marines (I mean . . . Starship Commandos), so I definitely want to do a seed based on that concept.
Instead of xenomorphs, this story is about the marines taking control of a vessel possibly smuggling nuclear weapons. The Marines can be part of any geopolitical structure that will fit in your campaign. For my campaign, I made them part of the United Systems Interstellar Command (USIC), leaving the exact nature of the United Systems undefined so that it could be expanded later if necessary with input from the players
(more…)While I’ve already done a one-pager inspired by Cyberpunk 2077, given it’s return as an Edge of Inspiration, I figured I’d go back to the well—especially since a band/musician is so integral to the story. Following one plot thread, the player can end up in a bunch of music industry flavoured nonsense.
The PCs are all linked to an up-and-coming band called ‘HandMark.’ What started as a bunch of teens goofing off looks like it might break wide open. The band has a growing social media presence. They’re making money both with real live gigs and virtual ones. And now they have a collection of songs they think will put them over the top. One magical night they put it all together. Working through the night, they record the perfect session. They are ecstatic. They collapse in the studio, exhausted. But in the morning, all the recordings are gone. The studio staff had left just before the band had flaked out and claim to know nothing. There’s no hope of recreating that magic. The band needs those recordings.
(more…)This one-pager is inspired by the key event in Cyberpunk 2077—the theft of a super-rare technology from a scion of a corporate empire. It’s a heist with major stakes and major repercussions.
The PCs in this adventure have all been burned by the same corporation. Palantine Security Solutions is a private security company that had also once had a private military corporation. After the Central Asian War of 2033, Palantine closed down its PMC and focused on security and law enforcement. Something happened, something so heinous that even a powerful corporation would feel the repercussions. Stock prices, contracts, and even corporate alliances would be shaken.
(more…)This one is more of a one-page component of an adventure than the adventure itself. This is an answer to the issue of PCs finding information. Sometimes, it’s just as easy to hand it over—have one of the PCs with the proper build know the information. Sometimes, it can be fun to breakdown how and where they get that information. For me, when it comes to ancient or otherwise forgotten knowledge, I force them to do what I did for so much of my time in university: do a little research!
In search of forgotten or obscure knowledge, the PCs seek out an archive that they know to have ancient sources—tomes and scrolls and maybe cuneiform tablets. The knowledge of which archive to visit and where that archive can be found might be it’s own little adventure following a similar path.
(more…)The Rings of Power introduced something that had been part of a Middle-Earth campaign I ran back in high school based on information from The Lord of the Rings’ appendices and The Silmarillion—there were five Istari, and the two Blue Istari disappeared into Rhun. I can’t remember much more than that, but in that campaign, the two Blue Istari returned, one taking Dol Guldor in Mirkwood and the other re-claiming Minas Morgul in Mordor at a time when the Reunited Kingdom was eating itself alive due to dynastic politics. So, this adventure is going to mimic that first adventure way back before even the first Lord of the Rings movies, when all we had was Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings and Rankin Bass’ Return of the King.
I’m thinking that the dying empire and the necromancer who is at the heart of this one-pager have a long history. In my thinking, the empire is the second rising of an ancient polity, and it had gained dominance after battling with an upstart kingdom led by a powerful enemy known as The Necromancer. Well, the emperors called them a necromancer, but they were more of a sorcerer. The emperor brought together a coalition of powerful nations under its leadership, defeated the sorcerer’s kingdom, and then forced itself on the coalition as a kind of overlord. That was two hundred years ago. The empire is falling apart as this story begins.
This is kind of a mystery, and much of it is finding more clues to the identity of The Necromancer at the centre of it. As the one-pager is intended for inspiration and outline rather than details, anyone running this scenario would probably add more clues than are mentioned.
(more…)
